


there was always time(if it's for you)

by nightstreak1239



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crest withdrawal symptoms, F/M, Romance, What-If, au where lys gets her crests removed, brief mention of experimentation, crest removal, spoilers for Lysithea's background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 09:57:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21097580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightstreak1239/pseuds/nightstreak1239
Summary: Cysithea angst, based on the idea of Lysithea getting her crests removed, but also suffering from withdrawal symptoms and a possible added frailty to her body - but hey, she gets to live a normal long life with Cyril.





	there was always time(if it's for you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [renfuros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renfuros/gifts).

> 5-6am angst with a happy ending, all because I got the prompt "There was always time" on a discord server I'm in + an idea sparked by renfuros on twitter, who draws blessed art of this pair. Not beta-ed, sorry. Hope you enjoy, this drabble got a bit longer than expected.

There was never time.

War consumed all in its wake - lands, lives, and time. Rare were the moments they could snatch for themselves, more often than not kept occupied with preparations for the next battle. Yet they made do, for who knew when the war would end, and the lilies would bloom again upon bloodstained ground? 

Brief moments - stolen kisses in obscure corners, pecks on the cheek whilst passing the other by, feather-light brushes against each other, as if that would ever compensate for stolen time. It was all they had, and all they would ever have for now, save for one thing that remained constant no matter how hectic their days became - regardless of how late it was, they would fall asleep without fail in each other's arms, fitting together as perfectly as a set of matched puzzle pieces, dreaming of a future where they might share more than just a bed together, a home, a family.

There was time. 

The war was over. The earth was trampled, burnt, soaked a thousand times over in blood, but the war was over and done with. At the window she stood, the picturesque image of an angel wreathed in white and violet, pristine despite the blood that had soiled those delicate hands. Outside, the sky was awash with rich golds and pinks, as if the colours had been splashed onto the open canvas of the horizon. Light streamed in through the open window, bathing her in its ethereal glow and illuminating her pale face, streaked by silent tears.

Later, she would assure him it was nothing more than dust in her eyes, but he knew better than that. 

A new dawn had arrived, for both Fodlan and them.

There would never be enough time.

He knew, even before the denial rose to her lips, that she was lying. The war might be over, but that didn't mean they had turned back the hands of time, reversed the scars of unspeakable experiments, neither did it undo the curse placed upon her mortal lifespan. Blood stained the palm of her hand when she drew it back after a sudden harsh coughing fit, sanguine roses blooming upon alabaster skin that were erased with a single swipe of her handkerchief. 

Ever the heroine, she played her part til the bitter end, fought tooth and nail to keep herself from being confined to her room when her body began to fail in its struggle against the debilitating illness that plagued her. For four years he searched even the corners of the very earth for a cure, tried anything and everything he could think of. She was gracious enough to let his frantic attempts slide, knowing full well the non-effectiveness of several proposed methods, each more outlandish than the last - but what was one to do, when all he had to go off were legends and forbidden techniques that were buried along with the corpses of their former owners? 

There would be time.

It was a slim hope at best, a procedure that threatened to risk her life even in the process of saving it. What little he had managed to salvage of the journals documenting the atrocities committed by the mages was barely sufficient to go off, and reading it was sickening enough without having to scrutinize every word for details - silence the heart and open the mind, pretend it was not his beloved's body that had been cut open and dissected into a mere sum of parts upon the pages of a book, pretend, for it was the only way to save her.

The rest had been a proposal - first suggested by Linhardt, a notable Crest scholar, followed by his senior Hanneman. Time was running short, the sand trickling through the hourglass of her lifespan, escaping, never to be found again. This was the only option left available to them, he had been warned, but he'd meant it back then when he'd sworn to her that he would do whatever it took for them to live out their lives together, till they were old and grey. 

He had never been one for blind faith in the goddess, but when they had locked her door to begin the process of removing her crests, he had fallen to his knees and prayed fervently like never before for a miracle to happen. Hours upon hours spent kneeling upon the oaken floorboards mere feet away from his beloved, lying as still as death itself and hovering dangerously on the threshold between life and the eternal abyss beyond. Those were dark times, to be sure, but the ache in his knees and the persistent stinging heat behind his eyes, all of that was worth the triumphant expression Hanneman wore when the door next swung open - revealing a peacefully slumbering Lysithea, an angel descended upon the mortal realm framed in purest white, save for the faintest flush of pink dusting her cheeks.

If ever there had been a time when Cyril had gladly fallen to his knees to give thanks to the goddess, it would have been then.

There would be time. 

At first, he doubted if it had actually worked. Only the flush of life on her once-drawn features kept him from wondering if this had been one giant, horrible mistake that had changed nothing. Something had to have happened, he trusted Hanneman and Lindhardt to assure that much of a result. For close to three days she slept, drifting between waking and unconsciousness with no clear end in sight - he'd even attempted to shake her awake by the shoulder, only to regret it the moment her body withdrew within itself and curled away from him in a violent spasm that wracked her tiny frame. 

She was alive, but at what cost?

Doomed to be sickly, stripped of the crests that had once been a source of both great power and infinite weakness. Doomed to a body made even frailer than before, wracked by agonizing pain and fits of wheezing that seemed as though they would never cease. Now she was but a mere husk of her former self, lacked her former innate arcane might despite the years of skill that had never quite faded away completely, only rusted over with time. There would always be this itch, an empty thrumming just below her skin and pulsing through her veins, a lack of something substantial that had once been as much a part of her as magic was. Not that he loved her any less for that, as if he could ever bring himself to think any less of her - she was alive and would live for a long time yet. That was the best they could hope for, in the end. After all, who was to say she would not recover, with those stolen years granted once more?

Years upon years upon years to spend by each other's sides, stretching out before them with seemingly limitless possibilities to choose from. His smile was the first thing that greeted her upon awakening, and that would continue to be so for many years to come, Where she went, he would follow, and so it was that as long as they were together, their lives would forever be complete. The war was over, but their life together was only just beginning.

There was always time, if it was for each other.


End file.
